Classic Gothic Literature

The Monk is a violent tale of ambition, murder, and incest. The great struggle between maintaining monastic vows and fulfilling personal ambitions leads the monk Ambrosio, into temptation and the breaking of his vows, then to sexual obsession and rape, and finally to murder in order to conceal his guilt. Written when Matthew Lewis was only 19, The Monk was criticised when first published in 1796 for its lewdness and impiety, but this criticism only added to its popularity.

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens, first serialised in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861. The action of the story takes place from Christmas Eve 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old, to the winter of 1840. Great Expectations is written in a semi-autobiographical style, and is the story of the orphan Pip, tracing his life from his early days of childhood until adulthood.

Als Jonathan Harker nach Transsylvanien reist, um Graf Dracula zu treffen, überkommen ihn schon bei der Ankunft in den Karpaten schlimme Vorahnungen. Graf Dracula zwingt Harker gegen seinen Willen, in seinem Schloss zu bleiben. Doch das wahre Grauen beginnt erst als er fliehen kann und nach London zurückkehrt. Denn sein unheimlicher Gastgeber hat sich schon auf dem Weg dorthin gemacht...

An Historical Gothic Romance set in Paris and elsewhere in France, Germany, and Spain. A rollicking good tale from Parisian salons to Peasant feasts and more.

First published in the English literary anthology annual The Keepsake in 1833 by Mary Shelly, master of Gothic fiction, The Invisible Girl is a story about the turbulence of secret love. Like much of her work, Shelly blends the dark and the supernatural with elements of romance and intimacy and unravels this story within a story with aplomb, and the setting of rural Wales in the early 19th century lends to the foreboding and bittersweet tone of the tale.

Il romanzo, scritto nel 1881, è ambientato nel 1864 in un luogo non ben precisato, sulle rive di un lago lombardo. Il Palazzo è invece la villa Pliniana, sul Lago di Como, visitata da Fogazzaro, la cui atmosfera cupa si adattava all'ambientazione del romanzo. Il libro fu ignorato dalla maggior parte delle riviste letterarie ma lodato da Verga, che lo definì una delle più belle concezioni romantiche mai apparse in Italia. Ne fu realizzato un film famoso nel 1942. Cornice musicale di Franz Strauss: notturno n. 7.

Questo romanzo, pubblicato nel 1851, viene presentato dall'autore come "romance" e non come romanzo. Così l'autore mette le mani avanti e si permette di spaziare nelle fantasie suggerite dalle novità dei suoi tempi: il mesmerismo, lo spiritismo, l'idea, insomma che potesse esistere il modo di comunicare con esseri disincarnati e che essi potessero influenzare gli eventi della nostra vita.

Wuthering Heights is Emily Bronte's only novel. Written between October 1845 and June 1846, Wuthering Heights was published in 1847 under the pseudonym "Ellis Bell"; Bronte died the following year, aged 30. Wuthering Heights and Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey were accepted by publisher Thomas Newby before the success of their sister Charlotte's novel, Jane Eyre.

Il monaco è il primo e più famoso romanzo gotico. Scritto nel 1796, raccolse un enorme successo, ma creò anche un notevole scandalo per i suoi contenuti: castelli, abbazie, fantasmi e, soprattutto, violenze, stupri, incesti; fra i suoi personaggi troviamo addirittura l’Ebreo errante, e Lucifero in persona. L’autore pubblicò quindi una versione più accettabile nel 1798, in cui i contenuti scabrosi hanno un intento più dichiaratamente morale, rendendolo ispiratore di numerosi altri romanzi (si pensa che anche Manzoni vi si sia ispirato).

In a failed attempt to turn him into an ageless lover, the evil, not-quite-a-vampire Lamia DuLaine poisoned hunky Druid high priest Julian Talbot on his wedding day. The Seelie Fae transported Julian to their realm for treatment and captured DuLaine, but not before she brutally murdered his new wife, Maxine.

In the classic Wuthering Heights, Catherine is forced to choose between passionate, tortured gypsy Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton. Catherine surrenders to the expectations of her class and sets off a domino effect with lasting consequences. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal are visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the lovers tortured past.

FNH Audio presents an unabridged reading of Bram Stoker’s classic tale Dracula. Johnathan Harker’s life became a horror-filled living nightmare when Count Dracula decided to move from his castle in Transylvania to a large house in London. Harker’s family and friends would be drawn into a maelstrom of madness and death.

Although Wuthering Heights is now a classic of English literature, contemporaneous reviews were deeply polarised; it was controversial because of its unusually stark depiction of mental and physical cruelty, and it challenged Victorian ideas about religion, morality, class, and woman's place in society.

I am William Lee: brute, liar and graveside thief. But you will know me by another name. Heathcliff has left Wuthering Heights and is travelling across the moors to Liverpool in search of his past. Along the way, he saves Emily, the foul-mouthed daughter of a highwayman, from a whipping, and the pair journey on together. Roaming from graveyard to graveyard, making a living from Emily's apparent ability to commune with the dead, the pair lie, cheat and scheme their way across the north of England.

Mary Shelley wished with her classic Gothic novel Frankenstein to "make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart". Mary Shelley succeeded. Victor Frankenstein finally fulfills his dream of creating his own living creature, stitched together from the macabre remains of corpses. To his horror he finds he has created something even more ghastly than in his worst imaginings. Frankenstein has created a monster with a soul!

In this time-honored story of horror, a ghost is thought to be the cause of the discomfort of performers in the Paris Opera House. Then the beautiful star disappears.

En 1877, l'Opéra de Paris est secoué par des phénomènes inquiétants... Lors des répétitions ou des spectacles, les accidents se multiplient. On murmure qu'il s'agit d'un fantôme qui menace les directeurs de l'Opéra des pires catastrophes s'ils ne lui obéissent pas. Cet être énigmatique qui erre dans le théâtre, prend sous son aile la jeune cantatrice Christine Danaé avec qui il noue une relation étrange. Il finit par l'enlever, peut-être dans un accès de folie.

Erik is an accomplished composer and musician whose great unfinished work, Don Juan Triumphant, is described as breathtakingly beautiful by the one person he allows to hear it. Erik is an object of pity, whose face has been disfigured from birth, causing him to hide behind a silk mask; and he is hopelessly in love with a young woman. He can never seriously hope she will love him back.

In the most cold and remote region of the planet lies mountains towering higher than the Himalayas and containing abominable secrets the mind can scarcely fathom. When an intrepid expedition stumbles across the remains of an ancient race of creatures that predates humanity by millions of years, they believe they've discovered the scientific find of the century. Instead, they've unearthed a terror beyond all reckoning which may devour them both body and soul. Enter into the icy realms of one of H. P. Lovecraft's most seminal cornerstones of the Cthulhu mythos... If you dare.

Northanger Abbey fu il primo romanzo di Jane Austen ad essere pubblicato anche, se in precedenza erano già state stese delle versioni di Orgoglio e pregiudizio e di Ragione e Sentimento. Il suo titolo originario, Susan (nome della protagonista che fu poi mutato in Catherine) fu rivisto per la stampa dalla Austen nel 1803, e venduto ad un editore che decise poi di non pubblicarlo.